Machiavellian!

I'm about halfway through my latest book and it's a true classic: Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. I don't get what big deal is. On the one hand, I can understand that he seems to be particularly vicious because he talks, repeatedly, of the need of a usurper or conquerer to "exterminate" the families of opposing princes and any nobles who would challenge a prince unloved by the people, but let's face it: in the 15th century, that's what princes did.

He does lay out in more or less precise terms that it is better to be feared than loved-- but by the nobles. By the people, it is better to be loved than feared, for a prince beloved of the people can easily keep the nobles in line.

I like Machiavelli because he names names: he discusses the Borgias, the Medicis, and Savonarola, all of whom were either his contemporaries or were recent enough in memory that he could interview men who know any of the above. I think Machiavelli is known mostly because he wrote at a time that became famous in history, the Medici period, of which much else has been written, and what he said was blazing in both its truth and its necessity. The Prince is a good book for anyone interested in politics. Now that I've read it, I will say that every time a villain quotes from it, I'll just have to laugh: its use is effective only to those who've never read it.

Eeeediots!

This afternoon, Omaha took Kouryou-chan out to watch Curious George, and I, having a family-friendly 87 minutes to sit around and wait for them, wandered over to CompUSA. I was going to implement Charlie Stross's recommendation to writers and buy a USB keyboard for my laptop so I could type into the laptop without wearing it out the native keyboard. That happened to Lain, remember, and I'm sure I don't want it to happen to my new laptop, Kusanagi, which finally came in the mail after three and a half months of waiting.

The people at CompUSA are morons. I found a $10 USB laptop and found a salesgeek. "Does this work with Linux?" I asked. The question was somewhat rhetorical; I was reasonably sure it did, but I wanted some confirmation. Anyway, the dude at CompUSA said, and I quote, "Uh, I don't know."

"Well, do any of these work with an iBook?" I said, knowing that the Mach USB keyboard drivers for iBooks were reasonably close to the drivers for Linux, and if one existed the other probably did too.

"You mean, like a Mac?"

"Yeah, like a Mac."

"I don't know." He turned the box over. "Says here it works with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. So probably not."

Whatever happened to customer service? Look, if you want to make a sale, you could go and see if that brand and model has a driver for my computer, yes? And then I might buy it, yes? Do floor people just not get commissions anymore? That's not right.